


Bloodsport

by Shaish



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: AU, Blood, Cage fighting au, Canon Compliant, Gen, M/M, Memory Loss, cage fighting, no powers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-26
Updated: 2015-11-26
Packaged: 2018-05-03 11:35:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5289206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shaish/pseuds/Shaish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loving you's a bloodsport.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bloodsport

**Author's Note:**

> Hi. So. I thought maybe I had posted this one up, but it appears I haven't. It's not finished, but it's been sitting on my computer foooooooor at least almost a year now, so I thought I'd just put it up regardless. I might finish the story, maybe another chapter or two to wrap it up after I get other things done, but for now there's just this one. I thought I'd put it here instead of having it waste away in my docs.
> 
> Song that started it all; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPNqJkQtUdQ

The thing is, Steve never stays down. Ever since his ma told him that, back when he was five and his father was yellin’ at her for all he was worth, because dinner took two minutes too long, because Steve got an 'F', because his pa ain't never yelled at who he was _really_ angry at, Steve’s never stayed down in a fight. In a back alley, in a war, and now in a fenced cage. Steve never stays down. But he looks up now, from wrapped hands into familiar blue eyes he thought he’d never see again and-

He grew up with Bucky since he was eight and Bucky was seven, prancing around the schoolyard, eyes blue as anything and hair dark enough it looked almost black in the shade. Steve got hit dead center in the face, went down with blood oozing out of his nose and his vision blurred, but he got up, and soon enough there was the sound of another kid yellin’, “Hey!” and then a hurricane only a little bigger than him waded into the pool of his life. Hauled Steve up after the bully was gone and said, “You’re bigger than you look.” He stuck his hand out and introduced himself as, “James Buchanan Barnes. But you can call me Bucky.” And Steve’s world had never been the same since.

The guys in their unit were nearly all half dressed in the frying of the desert sun, sat around in a large, lazy, lopsided circle, acted like a ring for their own entertainment. Bucky’d fought three of them and he’d still stood, and somehow, they managed to get Steve to give it a try. Bucky had just grinned, cocky as can be and said, “‘Bout time you joined in, Rogers." He bounced on his feet, naked above the waist and dog tags bouncing in the hair on his chest as he bounced on his feet like a wannabe boxer. Neither of them ever had the real training, the boxing, they were both a couple’a street kids who brawled in back alleys, never for the fun of it until they got older. But Steve let out a sigh and a quirk of his lips and raised his hands, and now he thinks-

 _‘You don’t move like this’_. And it sounds desperate in his head, but-

 _‘Buck, you’re not supposed to move like this.’_

A right fist aimed at him but then a quick shift to the left, and a pain shoots across his face the likes of which he’s never felt, never from a fist. It’s the hardest hit he’s ever received in his life, and it’s coming from a man he grew up with, with blue eyes he thought he’d lost for good four years ago who don’t look at him like they recognize him now. It’s a little ironic, he thinks, to get Bucky back only to not actually get him back at all.

He goes down, hard, hits the cement with blood streaming out past his lower lip. He thinks his jaw might have been dislocated. 

_“Yeah. There’s this fighter from Russia who wins ninety percent of his fights with a one-punch knockout.”_

Everything’s a little black around the edges. And Bucky’s not Russian, and it was two punches, not one, but Steve just barely thinks-

_“If I ever did stay down for anyone, it would be for you, Buck.”_

And then his vision goes black to the sound of enthusiastic screams and the dimming of the spot lights overhead.

\--

Steve finds him at a diner, of all things, sitting inside on a barstool at the counter, lights glowing out into the night like out of that famous painting (something 'bout hawks). His long hair is framing his face and he’s hunched slightly into his beat up, denim jacket, right hand wrapped around a diner white coffee mug, eyes alert and watching the waitress shuffling around at the other end behind the counter.

Steve’s stopped, frozen still, Sam a warm presence at his side that he can barely register.

“Hey.”

Steve manages to turn his head a little to the left, take his eyes off of Bucky long enough to look at Sam as Sam says, softly:

“Don’t make it weird. He doesn’t know.”

Steve looks back into the diner, to his childhood friend, _best_ friend, who isn’t either of those things now, sitting at a diner near the middle of the night and watching a waitress like at any point she could come at him with a fork, and feels his throat tighten.

“Yeah,” Steve says, “I know.” And walks in.

The door doesn’t chime when he steps in, but everyone looks over anyway. Bucky who isn’t Bucky’s eyes widen fractionally before narrowing, and Steve feels them on him as he moves past Bucky who isn’t Bucky, feels the wary gaze as he sits at the counter two seats down and orders a coffee with cream and sugar when the waitress asks. He’s tempted to order black, but that’s how Bucky likes it, not him.

The waitress gives him his coffee and Steve says a quiet thanks, taking a sip and letting the hot liquid glide in a burn down his throat, caressing the nerves in his stomach enough to ease some of the translating tension out of his stiff shoulders, dark jacket pulled in close. He feels the prickle of attention on the right side of his face, but when he looks over, Bucky’s staring down into his coffee cup, fingers relaxed around it. Steve looks back to his own.

It’s ten minutes before either speaks, the diner filled with just the sounds of the waitress’s shoes on the black and white squared tile and the ovens in the back, the quiet chatter of the man and woman sitting across from each other in a booth near the large windows behind him, the gentle, every so often rustle of a newspaper page being turned by the other guy with the hat sitting in the back corner, back and to his left.

“I know you.”

It’s quiet, so quiet, and Steve’s heart stills for a second before picking up double time. Because he _sounds_ like Bucky, even if it’s quieter than Steve’s heard in a very long time.

“Yeah,” Steve replies, quiet but not as quiet, adding after a moment of silence where Bucky who isn’t Bucky doesn’t say anything more, “My jaw’s doing fine, by the way.”

He looks over when he feels the prickle, and this time he does find Bucky who isn’t Bucky staring at him, eyebrows pulled together briefly in confusion before his expression finally clears a little, facing turning back forward and eyes dropping down to his coffee mug. Steve tries not to stare. It’s hard, but he manages it.

“You used to be smaller,” he says, and Steve freezes, looking back over. 

Bucky’s not looking at him, is looking straight across at the wall instead, eyebrows pulled together like he’s not sure why he said that.

“Why did you stay down this time-” He cuts himself off, looks back down to his mug with a furrowed brow before looking over at Steve like he has the answers his mug failed to give him.

“I thought you died, Buck,” is all that comes out. And it’s stupid, and he shouldn’t have said it, but Bucky who isn’t Bucky’s eyes widen, almost comically so, and then he’s out of his seat and out the door in a flash.

Steve wants to go after him. He drops a five on the table and briefly takes note of Bucky who isn’t Bucky’s mug before he’s out the door, but Bucky’s gone.

His coffee was black.


End file.
